


For Every Fallen Dream

by uro_boros



Series: grief counselor!Jean 'verse [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Levi is dead, M/M, Marco is dead, grief counselor!Jean, it's about growing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 09:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1504943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uro_boros/pseuds/uro_boros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His grief counselor ends up being Jean Kirschstein. </p><p>Eren nearly walks out the first day of group therapy. He hovers at the door instead, brow furrowed, mouth tense and unhappy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Every Fallen Dream

His grief counselor ends up being Jean Kirschstein. 

Eren nearly walks out the first day of group therapy. He hovers at the door instead, brow furrowed, mouth tense and unhappy.

He thinks of Mikasa’s dark eyes, the way they’ve been sad for weeks now, as Eren’s grief swallows him whole. She wouldn’t be disappointed if he walked out—Mikasa has never been disappointed in anything Eren’s done, just quietly accepted it with a steadfast loyalty that he’s never really deserved. Eren edges through the door carefully.

(He had to work for Levi’s loyalty. Everything about Levi had been a chore, even excluding the actual ones he insisted on the both of them doing; Eren remembers the first time they kissed, Levi tasting bitter like the swollen tea leaves at the bottom of his mug.

"Kid, what the fuck," Levi had said, sighing. "I’m twice your age."

And Eren had leaned across the small table of the cafe, grinning, because that wasn’t a no. He had knocked his knees against Levi’s under the table, and drawn absent-minded shapes with the sugar spilled across its fake-wood surface. Levi grimaced, face pinched, reaching for a napkin to clean it up.

Eren took his hand to stop him. Levi hadn’t pulled away.

Eren thinks about that day a lot, now.)

Kirschstein’s face is as long and pointed as it ever was in college. The glasses he wears now almost suit it, except they’re stupidly large, an attempt at being trendy that clashes with the fact that he’s a goddamn grief counselor. His expression is passive and oddly mild when he glances over Eren, like they didn’t spend the better part of their college career alternating between fist-fights and screaming matches.

Eren tugs self-consciously at his sweatshirt. It’s clean because Mikasa made sure that it was, but he’s been wearing it for three weeks straight. Its shoulders are too tight, its sleeves too small. It’s not really his, except that it’s in his closet now.

He swallows dryly, taking an empty seat. Kirschstein nods at him, and that’s that.

—-

Eren doesn’t talk the first session. Kirschstein leads introductions, a clipboard abandoned on his lap like the act of having it out is a perfunctory conciliatory gesture to the fact that he’s apparently become a grief counselor. He doesn’t take notes, but he listens to everyone carefully, attentively. The group trusts him, that much is obvious, and it’s so startling different than the boy Eren remembers that it briefly makes Eren’s head spin.

It really shouldn’t. It’s been six years. People change. 

Eren fell in love with a man twice his age and lost him.

It’s when everyone’s packing to leave, that Kirschstein calls him over. Eren tenses, darts a look at the open door—six years ago, he would have flipped Jean off and left. He looks at the floor instead, (thinks of how Levi would have hated it—it’s covered in scuff marks and old gum gone grey, and for a moment, Levi’s voice is so clear that it makes something burn in the corner of Eren’s eyes), and shuffles over.

"Is this alright, Eren?" Kirschstein’s voice is low and soft, clearly practiced at being soothing. Eren bristles instinctively.

"The fuck," he says, laughing and pulling back, eyes bright, "the fuck is this, a joke? I don’t need a goddamn grief counselor, and I especially don’t need fucking Jean Kirschstein."

Jean nods, like he expected that. Eren wants to punch him. He balls up his fist instead, digging marks into his palm. “You don’t have to attend,” is all he says. “I’d like it if you did, though. Mikasa’s concerned.”

Eren snarls then. Lip curling up, he spits, “Oh, you’ve been talking to Mikasa then? Still want to get into her pants, is that it? Help her fucked up brother and then you get to be the big goddamn hero? Bullshit.” He’s not sure where the anger is coming from. Jean doesn’t deserve it, and the sudden clenching in his jaw tells Eren that he knows he doesn’t. But Eren wants to fight. He wants bloody knuckles and a broken nose, wants something physical to sink himself into so he can forget how Levi sounded that day. Jean’s always been good for a fight, and Eren’s suddenly furious that he’s not.

Jean breathes, in even measures, eyes rolled up and focused on a point on the ceiling. After a second, he relaxes again, jaw unclenching. “Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I used to be that way too. Angry.”

(Levi had thanked him, that day in the hospital. “It’s been a good run,” he’d said, as Eren peppered kisses and tears across his cheek and jaw, hiccuping with sobs. 

"Don’t say that," he’d begged, couldn't even feel like a cliche for it with the way his vision was clouding, the way his hands were trembling, "it’s not over yet."

Levi laughed softly and smiled, and didn’t even complain about the snot Eren was trailing on him. He shut his eyes, instead, and murmured, “It’s okay. It’s okay, Eren. You’ll be okay.”)

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Eren hisses, furious. He raises his balled hand and—

Jean watches him. “If you want to do it, I’ll let you,” he says calmly. “It might make you feel better. It won’t last though. You’ll go home and you’ll be angry again.”

Eren lets his hand drop, because he’s never liked an easy target. The anger still pumps through him, white hot, a different kind of burn than the one at the corner of his eyes. “What do you even know?”

Jean shrugs. “Probably not a lot. Marco was better at this.”

Eren remembers Marco. Marco wore soft, cable-knit sweaters in faded colors, and tagged after Jean like it was his duty. He always had something nice to say, or a smile that always came off as genuine if he didn’t have words. He’d been soft-spoken and sweet, something Eren had vaguely considered Jean to be undeserving of. Eren had tossed that accusation against Jean once or twice, and come out of their fights bloodier for it.

"Marco?" he questions.

"Died a year after we graduated. Car accident. Hit and run with a drunk driver," Jean explains. His words are careful, composed, and he considers Eren passively as he says them. 

"Oh," says Eren. A beat later, reflexively, he adds, "I’m sorry."

Jean shrugs again. There are lines folded in the corners of his eyes, magnified by his glasses. “It’s okay,” he says, “I’m okay now.”

It’s a dull echo of Levi’s words. Eren can’t stand them, but he’s no longer angry. His anger feels shriveled up inside him, cold and small. “How can you say that?” he asks, when the words finally come to him.

"It takes time," Jean tells him. "I can teach you."

—-

Eren speaks at the next session.


End file.
